New Policy Encourages Car Owners to Change Vehicles

A new subsidy policy will start in July will encourage car owners to get rid of vehicles that fail national emissions standards. The subsidies that will be given are slightly higher to further encourage vehicle owners to dispose of their high emission vehicles.

Th government is planning to eliminate yellow labeled vehicles by 2015 to further improve the city’s air quality. Right now vehicles with yellow labels are banned in certain areas at designated hours, and nearly 300,000 more vehicles will be banned from the roads. Current policies are offering vehicle owners subsidies between 5,000 to 18,000 yuan if they replace their yellow labeled cars with environmentally friendly vehicles.

There are 25 vehicle testing stations around Shenzhen conducting emission tests and deciding whether to give a vehicle a green or yellow label. So far, 82 percent of gasoline powered vehicles have passed the tests. One station designated by the Human Settlement and Environmental Commission sells green label vehicles to car owners whose vehicles fail emission tests.